CAN THE REST OF THE WORLD SEND A POWERFUL MESSAGE TO THE US GOVERNMENT ON CLIMATE ACTION?

LONDON and SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Generation Investment Management, the sustainable investment manager, today published its ninth Sustainability Trends Report, which annually seeks to answer the question of where the world stands in the transition to a low-emissions economy. This year's assessment analyses the question: Can ambitious global climate action survive the decision by the current United States government to walk away? The report also reveals the current status of and shifts needed in sustainability across the global economy - spanning the sectors and activities of Power; Transportation; Buildings & Industry; People, Land & Food; and Financing the Transition.

Al Gore, Chairman of Generation Investment Management, said: "The current US position on the future of the sustainable economy is not only wrong, it is irresponsible. It is nothing short of a tragedy that one of the world's most dynamic economies will be retreating as the low-emissions technologies of the future are implemented and commercialised everywhere else."

"In the face of such recklessness, the rest of the world must not cower, but stick together and show fortitude against the bullying and threats of the fossil fuel industry and its political allies. It is imperative that investors, business leaders and government officials harness their power to embrace the opportunity created by the sustainable solutions at our fingertips and get the climate crisis under control."

A CRITICAL JUNCTURE IN GLOBAL CLIMATE AMBITION

In January 2025 President Trump signed an executive order repealing or sharply limiting climate investments that had been adopted under his predecessor. He filed formal notice to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a decision that will take formal effect in January 2026. He has even moved to revoke the federal government's authority to regulate greenhouse gases at all, a move that - if allowed by courts to take hold - would likely hobble climate action by future US presidents.

The US government's abandonment of climate action could not come at a worse time for the rest of the world. Countries are in the middle of a cycle in which they are supposed to be announcing ambitious new plans for emissions cuts by 2035. Those plans were nominally due in February 2025 but only a handful were filed by then, as other countries waited to see what the world's largest historical emitter would do. Even now relatively few plans have been filed, and they reveal a distinct lack of ambition in setting new emissions targets.

The 30^th meeting of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, better known as the Conference of the Parties or COP30, will occur this November 2025 in Belém, the large Brazilian city that serves as a gateway to the Amazon River system. This meeting is a critical moment. The decision of the US to walk away from climate action could backfire, prompting other countries to see that it is in their interest to stick together against US bullying and threats. The best possible outcome would be an ambitious series of national pledges to continue cutting emissions and accelerating the transitions to lower emissions and restored nature.

THE ENERGY TRANSITION COMES WITH A 'MADE IN CHINA' STAMP

The bulk of future emissions are projected to come from developing countries, including China. In effect, this means that action - or inaction - by the US is no longer conclusive in determining the planet's long-term fate. Despite its historical responsibility, alongside other industrialised nations, for the emissions that are endangering the planet, the US no longer holds the keys for accelerating the transition to a more sustainable way of life.

For the foreseeable future, the energy transition comes with a 'Made in China' stamp. The dramatic embrace of solar power, wind power, electric cars and other advanced technologies in China demonstrates that the country is already accepting this position. The possibility of a fully green China - an 'electrostate' - is by no means imminent, but it looks more achievable than only a few years ago. Manufacturing and deployment in China has played such a central role in driving down the costs of these technologies that sales of Chinese-made energy technologies are accelerating all over the world. We see this in Pakistan, for example, where a mad rush is under way to install Chinese-made solar panels as a strategy to cope with an unreliable power grid, while sales of Chinese-made electric cars are soaring in countries as diverse as Brazil and Indonesia.

A NEED TO RECOGNISE THE URGENCY OF THE LAND TRANSITION

In the same way the world now speaks of an energy transition to guide the global push for cleaner energy, The Sustainability Trends Report highlights the case for the world to recognise the need for a land transition - using farm land more efficiently and restoring wild nature to disused farm land. Some 2.3 billion people faced moderate to severe food insecurity in 2024 - an increase of more than 600 million people from a decade earlier. A more acute measure, chronic undernourishment, stands at 673 million people, more than 8 percent of the world's population.

One way to meet future food needs in the face of a deteriorating climate would be to put more land under plow. Yet, agriculture is itself a major cause of the global climate crisis, accounting for around a quarter of global emissions, and humanity has already claimed more than 40 percent of the world's habitable land for agriculture. The result has been an immense destruction of the natural world, with much of the world's wildlife apparently on its way to extinction. This creates an urgent double imperative: to increase the supply of food for a global population expected to peak above 10 billion, and to save what is left of wild nature even as we do so. These are not two problems: they are a single, interlocking problem to which a land transition is the solution.

Accelerating trends across sectors and activities outlined in the report include:

Power

Renewable electricity is now growing rapidly, with solar energy continuing to be the breakout star as the production of electricity from solar panels rose 28 percent last year. But power demand is starting to grow rapidly too, in some countries for the first time in two decades: new data centres are gulping down electricity with leading utilities in the US promising a wave of new power plants burning fossil gas. More cars and heat pumps are drawing power from the grid. It remains unclear when we will turn the corner and see electricity emissions begin to fall, particularly with the rise of populist political movements that are hostile to renewables.
The report examines whether artificial intelligence can be compatible with a sustainable world. Perhaps the most critical immediate issue is the exploding power demand associated with running the latest AI models, and how to meet it without driving up harmful emissions. Important efforts are beginning to supply clean baseload power to support the decoupling of emissions intensity and compute intensity. This decoupling is required urgently at every level of the AI value chain: the chip level, the software level, the facility level and the consumer level. AI could be an enormous help in cutting emissions, if it is used to make systems like power, transportation and food more efficient. A recent study found that AI applications across those systems could reduce global emissions by 6 to 10 percent annually by 2035. In addition to energy use, sustainability considerations of AI include skills productivity, job displacement, and the importance of privacy and security in the AI transition.

Transportation

The worldwide boom in electric cars continues apace. Sales rose sharply last year and the growth continued into the first months of 2025, with a 35 percent increase globally in the first quarter of this year and sales jumps across most major markets. However, the US is the most important laggard, with only about 10 percent of its car sales being electric in 2024. Yet of all the emissions from transportation, more than 40 percent can be attributed to moving goods rather than people - while sales of electric heavy lorries or trucks jumped 80 percent in 2024, they remain less than 2 percent of global truck sales.

Industry & Buildings

Practically no progress has been made in decarbonising heavy industry, with the report highlighting the bursting of the "great hydrogen bubble," and the slowness of governments to adopt other strategies that could help to get industry moving. Hydrogen is not the only example where the clean-up of the world's industry is stuck in neutral. Hopes for a global treaty to control plastics pollution, and the emissions associated with production of virgin plastic, have been dashed twice by the fossil-fuel interests that oppose it.
Governments committed themselves to doubling the rate at which the energy efficiency of buildings is improving, but to achieve that goal, investments in making buildings more energy-efficient need to rise sharply. The International Energy Agency actually forecasts a decline in 2025.

People, Land & Food

An increase in world hunger is a reversal of a decades-long trend of slow, steady improvement in nutrition across much of the world. For all its success, the modern food system is wasteful - approximately 30 percent of the food farmers grow is never eaten, highlighting one of the challenges governments face in securing food supply in an overheating climate.

Financing the Transition

Public finance for the sustainability transition faces enormous strain as some governments redirect funds to competing priorities, cut climate commitments and struggle with political backlash. Rich countries' pledges often fall short, deepening mistrust with developing nations. Yet there are signs of resilience and progress. A landmark agreement made two years ago commits developed countries to channel $300 billion annually by 2035, alongside a pledge to try to come up with a much larger sum, $1.3 trillion. Clean energy investment already outpaces fossil fuels 2-to-1, and the momentum is clear, even if not yet fast enough.

Looking Ahead

Politicians have time and again made a promise to the vast majority of people around the world who want to see climate action that emissions would peak and then begin to fall, and they have yet to redeem that promise. COP30 is a chance to begin to follow through. Key focus will be placed on the Brazilian president's creative proposal for a new global fund designed to save tropical forests and his ability to bridge the bitter divides between rich and poor nations over climate finance. The tardiness of countries in submitting their new emissions-limiting plans is certainly an ominous sign for successful outcomes at the meeting. If the world is to have a successful conference outcome and regain climate action momentum without the US, it is imperative that countries submit ambitious plans now.

About Generation Investment Management

Generation Investment Management is an independent, private, owner-managed partnership headquartered in London, with a US presence in San Francisco. Since its founding in 2004, Generation has played a pioneering role in the development of sustainable investing. Its vision is a sustainable world in which prosperity is shared broadly, in a society that achieves wellbeing for all, protects nature and preserves a habitable climate. Generation pursues its vision with urgency by seeking to deliver long-term, attractive, risk-adjusted investment returns and positive impact, and by advocating for the adoption of sustainable investing across the wider market. For more information, please visit us at generationim.com.

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